


A Vacation, a Diner, and a Friend

by aphamerica



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Canon Divergent, Happy Ending, Oneshot, probably :-0c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphamerica/pseuds/aphamerica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A canon divergent oneshot where Alfred and Matthew meet Davie much later in their life and can appreciate their time together.</p>
<p>Matthew takes a vacation once a year to the semi-familiar American Midwest and Alfred always has a plan. This year he has been strangely persistant on taking Matthew to a little diner in the middle of nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Vacation, a Diner, and a Friend

"You've just got to come with me to this little diner, it's the best!" Alfred had told him before coming down. It was mid-January and the cold was beginning to drive Matthew up the wall. It was around this time of year Matthew would take a hiatus from his duties and stop by Alfred's place for a bit of a vacation. He wouldn't travel very far because of the worry he may need to return at a moments notice, so he travelled to a small cabin in the Midwest. It wasn't much of a temperature difference, but it was enough. The Midwest also felt a bit familiar, not quite the same, but just close enough to keep him comfortable.

Alfred always loved it when Matthew would stop over, he would plan activities nonstop. Proposing things like skiing, snowboarding, going to saunas, indoor amusement parks, visiting restaurants, a day of Matthew's vacation wouldn't go by without a hopeful call from Alfred. This had been the most insistant on a plan Alfred had ever been. Matthew decided that having breakfast at a diner would be fun, and accepted the offer. After a bit of a drive on snow dusted roads the two brothers arrived at a small diner that could have passed as a house. Alfred led the way into the diner with pure smile without any ulterior cause.

Matthew looked around as Alfred led them to a booth near a window. They were soon joined by a woman in a polo and jeans who was holding a small notepad.

"You two are up seizing the day! Alfred, the regular for you?" she asked with a sincere smile.

"Yep! Do you mind if he looks over the menu for a minute?" Alfred replied, asking not expecting any other answer but "yes". She nodded and handed Matthew a menu, starting conversation with Alfred while they waited. Matthew flipped through the menu, focusing on the breakfast section. Omelets, pancakes, and different breakfast combinations filled the section. He looked for the most familiar option and decided on a combination of waffles, eggs, and sausage links.

"Um," he interjected into their conversation, "I'll just have the second breakfast combo."

"Alright, I'll have that out for you in a few!" The waitress said not bothering to write down the order. She soon left Matthew and Alfred to themselves. Alfred, however, seemed too busy staring out the window. Matthew supposed he shouldn't bother him and decided to use the time to investigate the diner from his seat instead.

It was just a regular diner. Nothing stood out except for that it seemed like every other diner he had been to. Maybe over time they blended together. He had been alive for hundreds of years and had been to so many diners, he truly lost track of what separated one from another. Even restaurants weren't free from the blending of memories. He only remembered a few separate places for their foods and services. It bothered him that Alfred found something in this place that he couldn't.

His musings were interrupted by the warm smell of eggs and maple smoked sausage links. He looked up to see the waitress had just left the kitchen and was making her way to the table.

"Wow, that was fast," Matthew murmured to himself. He looked around and realized it would be, being they were the only patrons.

"Here you go, a breakfast combo and our breakfast platter!" the waitress said, passing the platter to Alfred and the combo to Matthew. There didn't seem to be much difference between the two dishes to Matthew. The difference he saw was that there were hashbrowns on Alfred's plate, and not his own. He didn't mind, there was already enough food on his plate. Waffles, sausage links, eggs, all of it looking delicious. Alfred smiled and began to eat quickly, gesturing for Matthew to eat as well.

"C'mon!" he prodded in between bites of food. Matthew took a few bites, it was definitely a home cooked breakfast. The food tasted good, but it wasn't fine dining. It seemed that all that there really was left to love was the decor, and even that seemed ordinary.

Matthew looked around in between bites of his breakfast to try and discover the secret key hidden away in the decor to unlock the understanding of Alfred's infatuation with the place. Photos of the "firsts" the diner experienced lined the walls, each labelled. "Opening day", "First dollar", "First full dining room", there were many more but he couldn't quite read them from where he was sitting. It wasn't just photos that decorated the small diner, there was traces of 50's memorabilia. Shelves were filled with toy cars modeled after cars akin to the 1950's, old baseball cards framed to preserve worth, old records. It all seemed so familiar. He just didn't get why Alfred seemed to love this place more than any other restaurant he had ever been to.

Alfred would bite his lip smiling and look out the window between bites of food every so often. Matthew tried to relax, just appreciating just having the breakfast with Alfred. But the fact that Alfred wasn't talking was grounds enough to know something was up.

"Alfred," Matthew stated, "What's up? You normally talk when I come over, and you keep looking out that window like you have some secret!" Alfred shifted on his seat and looked Matthew in the eyes. A toothy smile spread across his face.

"Just wait until you meet Davie!" Matthew blinked. _Ah, so that was it. It all made sense, Alfred had made a friend and they were going to meet them there._  Matthew felt as though he couldn't be mad at Alfred, even though he felt weird that he had invited someone else along without telling him.

"Alright," he said with a nod and a smile. _Perhaps I am just blowing it out of proportion_ , he thought. The front door swung open and someone bustled inside, standing in the entrance shaking the fresh snow off of themselves.

"Davie!" Alfred exclaimed excitedly, raising up one hand as a greeting. The new individual kept brushing snow off, not noticing Alfred's greeting over the noise of brushing the snow off of themself. They eventually stopped dusting snow off of their tan jacket and hung it up on the coat hook near the door, placing their hat on a hook as well. They made their way further into the diner, going behind the front desk to clock in.

"Morning Lacy," the man stated with a nod and a wave to the waitress.

"Mornin'!" She said with a smile, not breaking her concentration on carrying dishes. Alfred was turned, watching Davie with a smile, nearly bouncing off his seat. He only settled down when Davie left behind the counter.

"Morning Alfred," Davie said, walking towards the table with a warm smile.

"Mornin' Davie!" Alfred said enthusiastically, turning in the booth to face him. "I brought my brother along! He came down from Canada for a bit to beat the cold and is staying here for a bit, and so I thought I'd bring him here!" Matthew tried not to sink into the booth, not wanting to be the center of attention as well as not trying to seem rude. So that was Davie. The owner of the diner who knew Alfred as a regular.

"So you're Matthew," Davie said with a warm smile, extending his hand to Matthew, "Nice to finally meet you!"

"You as well," Matthew said not nearly as exuberantly, while shaking his hand.

"So you're from Canada? I've never quite made it up there, heard it's nice though!" Davie said retracting his hand and making his way into Alfred's booth.

"Well, yeah, it's pretty nice I think. It's just nice to take a vacation, you know?" Matthew replied finding it easy to communicate with him. He seemed like the kind of guy that would never laugh at an idea, it was refreshing.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean. The way it snows up there would get a bit tiring I think, it gets to be a bit much for me here!" he replied with a laugh, but quickly changed the direction conversation. "So you're Alfred's brother?"

"Mhm," Matthew responded with a nod, "He has a cabin set aside just a few minutes from here for whenever I come down." Matthew said smiling. Davie kindly laughed and pushed Alfred.

"Oh don't I know all about _that_ ," he said looking at Alfred who was grinning sheepishly. "Alfred tells me all about your guy's adventures."

"Well," Alfred said with a bit of a laugh, "Not _all_ of them!"

The conversation continued like this for quite some time. Meaningless chatter, but fun nevertheless. Matthew didn't have any doubts about why this place was unique to Alfred anymore. It was Davie that made this roadside diner what it was. Without him it wouldn't be the same. Matthew decided that from that point on he would stop by to shoot the breeze with Davie every time he took a break to the Midwest.


End file.
